


Personal Notes (39) Comfort and Hurt

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [39]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Porn, Sexual Content, spoilers for Visitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:49:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1930809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil discuss the effects of Carlos's depression and Carlos makes a decision unwillingly. They also let the Whispering Forest help out their relationship. Carlos plans a raid on the Museum of Forbidden Technologies and muses on the significance of age and birthdays. Oh, poor Khoshekh!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Side effects

A scientist is good at recognising patterns. Over the past two weeks I have had more good days than bad but if I push myself to do too much, act normal, interact, I come crashing down later or the next day. I blame myself for not being able to climb out of this pit and that makes it worse, I lock into a spiral of loathing and helplessness that I cannot escape on my own. Cecil wants to help, it bothers him that he can’t fix me. He doesn’t say so but I see it in his face when I push him away or can’t respond to his warmth. Then I wonder how long he will put up with these sunless intervals, and despair crushes me tighter. I tell myself, although I know it is stupid, that I should be getting better faster than this. 

Ell brought up the subject of medication again. Again I refused. I read about the side effects and it scared me. Why would I voluntarily take medication that could exacerbate my symptoms while I adjusted to it? In private, Cecil told me that I might consider it. I was worried about the likely loss of what little remains of my libido, but he said that perhaps that would be a temporary problem and might improve once my neurotransmitter levels were closer to normal. He said he wants me well again and if medication would speed up my recovery I might think about it. Besides, he added, we could always visit the Whispering Forest more often, because that rarely fails to… I won’t record his actual words here but he used a phrase that pulled me out of my mood and made me giggle and blush. We talked about medication again later. I showed him the full list of potential side effects, increasing in panic and decreasing in ability to form words as I tried to talk but ended up just thrusting the leaflet at him. We went through them one by one and Cecil made me assign a probability to each based on scientific data. That gave me a little perspective. 

The contraindication that concerned me the most was _increased thoughts of suicide_. Cecil asked if I’d never looked out of a window and wondered what would happen if I fell, what would the rushing air sound like, and I have. Every time I look down from a height I wonder what it would feel like and yet I have never jumped. Even now I know I would not. Between them, Cecil and Ell offered to put me under twenty-four hour watch if that made me feel more secure. I said that would not be necessary and agreed to try medication. Ell made me start right away, watched as I swallowed the first little round pill, gave the rest of the pack to Cecil. 

That was nine days ago and the side effects are calming down. I spent most of the first week dozing, battling nausea and trying to read but giving up and playing computer scrabble with Fey. She always wins and crashes the program if I get a really big score. She kept me updated about what she could see and hear at the silo, which was almost nothing, just a couple of furtive deliveries. Today I feel a little clearer. I asked Cecil if he had noticed any difference, he said that I seemed calmer, less tightly wound but more tired. He asked if I wanted to go for a walk to help clear my head. Yes, I replied, in the forest and bring your favourite lab coat in case we want to do science. 

We snuggled up together for a while wrapped in affection, pressed against each other until he almost got science on the sofa.


	2. The significance of colour.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos realises something remarkably human about the Whispering Forest and persuades it that he's a good boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mostly filth.

We did go to the Whispering Forest on Cecil's day off. We had some things to discuss that we did not want overheard. Making up new codes for Tamika has become less important now that we have Fey's help, but I wanted to ask Cecil if he knew of anywhere I could obtain some of the less common components for my temporal loop generator, and I wanted my notebook hidden again. We walked through the first few rows of trees as usual with Cecil chatting and me trying to guess the other half of the conversation. Cecil led me through our usual clearing and deeper into the forest. This made me nervous and I held his hand. He pulled me along, smiling quietly, occasionally humming or nodding.

We emerged through a particularly dark, dense canopy into a new clearing. It was beautiful. There were flowers everywhere - hyacinths and bluebells, lilac and purple anemones, tiny plum primula amongst the vinca growing close to the ground with amethyst cranesbill billowing over, cushions of lavender amongst the rocks, early flowering convolvulus weaving up through the branches and dripping delicate blue trumpets, midnight irises around a small pool fed by a gurgling brook. Cecil turned to me and laughed at my open-mouthed expression. I forgot to breathe.

  
"It's a desert," I said, "How on earth can this exist?"  
"I asked the forest to make me somewhere a little more, umm, romantic I guess?" Cecil replied. "It has done a good job, don't you think?"  
"It is astonishing! It is beautiful!" I looked around and stared at the range of colours, put my hand into the pool and watched as a tiny fish swam over to investigate. I took a sample bottle from my lab coat pocket, but put it back again when Cecil took my hand and shook his head. I looked into Cecil's violet eyes and I realised that I was intruding. "This is for you. The Whispering Forest made all this. For you."  
He looked a little shifty. "Do you mind? I come here sometimes. When I need space of my own."  
I hugged him and said, "Of course I don't mind. I'm honoured that you brought me here. Does the forest mind that I am here?" The trees tossed their leaves a little. I could almost hear Cecil's concentration. I waited for a reply, hoping that it would not be painful.  
"Look," Cecil pointed up at the convolvulus above us as a clematis that grew around it giving mutual support opened a single red flower. Nothing else happened. "I think that's as much acceptance as you're going to get." I concentrated on trying to say thank you and a susurration in my head seemed to say _We did this only for the Voice. You exist for him._ I did not completely disagree.

We talked for a while. Cecil suggested I might find some useful components in the Museum of Forbidden Technologies but that it was illegal to purchase tickets or go there. I decided that the solution, if it was illegal anyway, would be to break in and have a good look around. I did not tell Cecil this, I needed to work out a detailed plan first. The forest took my notebook again. I could almost sense its revulsion at touching the paper.

We sat back to back on the picnic blanket, leaning against each other. Cecil spoke first.   
"Do you remember that first time I took you to the creek in the sand wastes..."   
"Was that only our second date?" I thought I was receiving the same trickle of images, "when I nearly ..."   
"You nearly made me come in my pants." Cecil was laughing.   
"Shit. I couldn't keep my hands off you. I was going to say 'nearly ruined our first time' but yeah... I really wanted to, I'm not the romantic type. Sorry. The forest does a better job of romance. I thought I'd scared you away."   
"Hope I made up for it."   
"Many times. Scientifically. Speaking of which, I wanted to conduct a further experiment into mmmmfh....." 

Cecil was on top of me. I have no idea how he moved so quickly. One minute we were relaxing, leaning on each other back to back, the next I was on my back and Cecil was _everywhere_. I did want to study this phenomenon and gasped out, "visions... later... compare... science... Mmmhh..." between frantic kissing and writhing. I closed my eyes and let the forest feed me with images, images of things Cecil and I had done together often, things we had talked about doing but hadn't, that thing I had wondered about suggesting but didn't in case he thought I was weird, and things that I hadn't known could be done... Either Cecil or the forest has a very good imagination and a thorough grasp of anatomy and physiology. 

I remembered the night I got home to my little apartment to find Cecil had broken in and laid out a seduction scene for me. I remembered waking up and not knowing how to persuade him to stay all night, saying goodbye. The feeling of my half-asleep naked body against his clothing during our goodnight kiss and the effect it had on me then... was having on me now. Cecil slid off me so that he could loosen my clothing. No words, we each knew what the other was thinking. He stood up and pulled me up to stand in front of him then helped me out of my clothing. He gave me my lab coat back to wear but I did not feel cold at all. He snaked his arms around my waist and pulled close to me, touching lightly, teasing. He put his hands on my hips and we began a slow grind that lasted until I couldn't stand it any more and reached for his belt buckle.

Please let this work, I thought, don't fade and vanish. Last time I had felt any activity in that area was a few days earlier when I made Cecil miss the last part of an episode of _Sherlock_. He tried to stop me, but not very seriously. My physical response was reassuring to us both but lasted only long enough to give me that warm tingle before evaporating and leaving us both frustrated in different ways. Cecil asked if he had done something wrong and I tried to explain: it's the illness, the medication, what you're doing feels nice, _really_ nice and I want to, but the feeling just slipped away. I was not sure what felt worse, having no interest in my own gratification or being taken teasingly halfway there and left, betrayed by my own body.

I guided Cecil down onto the blanket again. I sensed his indecision, act quickly while it lasted or take it slowly and hope. I answered the question he didn't ask: slow. We took our time, kissing and stroking, gentle hands and tongues everywhere. He traced swirling patterns with his fingernails from my neck down my shoulders and back before stroking at the raised hairs on my arms, letting my seeking mouth find his briefly then tickling his tongue over my erect nipples. I buried my face in his shoulder, kissed my way across his collarbones and down to his navel. He sat propped up on one elbow and watched as I wriggled gradually lower. He worked his free hand through my hair. I looked up and caught his eye, held his gaze as I licked once from the base of his erection to the tip. He closed his eyes, let his head sag back, lay down and arched his hips up to me. I licked again, tongue relaxed, soft and slow, this time closing my lips around the head and pulling it into my mouth. I wanted to watch him, watch his expression like I sometimes watched the webcam clip that caused me so much embarrassment months ago. I began to circle my tongue and he arched again, trying to push deeper into my mouth but I moved with him, not wanting to let him speed this moment up.

He pushed himself up slightly and put a hand on my head, slight resistance, his signal for me to stop. I crawled up to kiss him. He rolled me onto my back and settled with his knees either side of my head so that I had to reach up to take him. I pushed his knees further apart to bring him lower, he nudged behind my knees until I bent them up. I felt a delicious heat that made my core tighten. So slowly, so agonisingly, delightfully slowly, Cecil moved his tongue around the head of my penis whilst stroking my shaft with one hand, the other hooked around behind my thigh to stroke my testicles. I matched his actions, still straining up slightly to reach, my other hand tracing over his buttocks and perineum, making him shiver and twitch. Carefully, I traced my fingers from his coccyx to his perineum and back again, making Cecil moan, vibrations travelling from his lips to my sensitive glans. I hummed in return and felt an excited twitch against my tongue. I continued to trace my fingertips gently back and forward as I hummed and circled and pulled and sucked slowly.

Cecil lowered himself slightly. I moved my head to take more of his erection into my mouth and pulled back again. He lowered slightly more. I repeated a languid rhythm of stimulation, one hand on his hip so that he didn't thrust down too far, the other coming to rest with my fingers by his entrance. Carefully, I probed with one finger, ready to back off if it hurt him. I worked one finger just inside him and stopped as he gripped around it then relaxed a little. I pushed in a millimetre at a time, still sucking slow pulls, still tonguing. He gasped as I twitched my finger, gripped and started to speed up.

I matched his pace. He matched my actions. I was barely aware of what he was doing that felt so fantastic. There was a brief, sharp pain as his finger entered me and I flinched, but the muscle spasm passed and I felt that frantic, tantalising tingle that told me I was getting close. _Oh please, let it happen, this time let it happen..._ The effervescence built up in my groin until Cecil twitched his finger, suddenly slowed down to give me a few long, firm pulls and I opened my mouth to try to call his name as my orgasm rocketed through my brain and my core.

He bit the inside of my thigh as he slowly removed his finger, making me groan a little. I resumed my activity on Cecil but he said stopstopstop, waited for me to remove my finger and disengage my mouth, rolled off me and lay back, propped up on his elbows again, watching me. _Oh glowcloud, he's letting me see_ I thought, _shit, he knows I still have that video clip._ He only smiled and said: I know you want to. Oh fuck I did want to. I settled between his thighs and took him into my mouth again, angling my head and eyes to look at his face. He closed his eyes after a few moments and I watched as his relaxed expression turned into one of intense concentration followed by the open-mouthed, gasping, incoherent joy that I would never get tired of causing.

We lay there, nestled together, until we started to feel the chill again. I think I even slept because when I looked up and around us the deep crimson clematis was in full flower and there were patches of scarlet tulips amongst the bluebells.


	3. It is not his birthday.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some science happens and a disaster.

I felt well enough to join the science team at the house that does not exist today. I took my spectrometer so that I could analyse the light coming from the vicinity of the house and its neighbours and from the window through which we could see John Peters youknowthefarmerdammit staring at pictures of lighthouses. We finally detected some activity within the house and Aleck rattled the door handle while Estrella banged on the door. The door opened and a woman called Cynthia shouted at us to leave her alone. I asked if we could see inside her house. She didn't offer us a tour but I could see through to the front room. There was no farmer and there were no pictures of lighthouses, just chintzy decor and what looked like family photographs. Gio asked how long she had lived there and she snapped, "nineteen years now get lost." 

We packed up our equipment and left to give Cynthia time to calm down but we will return, perhaps she will allow us to investigate if we explain why we are there but today she was angry and not prepared to listen. Gio chose not to remind her that the estate on which her house is situated was only built three years ago according to records at City Hall. I remembered Dana's description of her strange location and wondered if the pictures were of her lighthouse. Cynthia's nineteen years compared with the three years we were fairly sure was the time that had passed in Night Vale suggested a relative temporal retardation factor of at least six. There was no way to determine whose timeframe was correct. Are we running slow, are they running fast, or are we all in our own relative timeframe independent of each other?

After we left the house that does not exist I checked the data from the spectroscope and confirmed that the light from the window was blue-shifted slightly more than the light from the dog park recorded a year ago. I needed more data. Aleck and I went back to the boundary of the dog park and repeated the measurements from exactly the same location as before. The blue shift is greater. Whatever light source is approaching is also accelerating. We could not say more than that, we could estimate current velocity but not likely time of arrival because we did not know how far away it was. I called Cecil to give him an update but got his voicemail. I hate leaving messages so I kept it to the minimum news about the house that does not exist.

I asked Aleck if he would help with my planned visit to the Museum of Forbidden Technologies. He said that my plan of breaking in was unnecessary because Susan could get us educational passes. All teaching staff, even second grade literacy teachers apparently, are required to visit the museum at least annually to find out about topics they may not talk about in the classroom in case the youth of Night Vale become corrupted by thoughts of technology. I expressed my opinion that this is insane, but accompanied Aleck to the elementary school and waited in the car while he went in and got two passes from Susan and a colleague. He explained, after waving and saying hello to a group of small children who sounded like they were attempting to short circuit the electric fence with a range of half-size musical instruments, that we were doing the teachers a favour by logging their annual visit for them. He handed me a swipecard. "If anyone asks you when we get there, I'm Susan and you're Dinah."

It was a good use of time. With teacher passes, we had access to all the exhibits hidden behind black curtains and we were not accompanied by guards. We left the museum with two vital circuit boards and a pocket full of useful looking components. We locked them in the pterodactyl cage stuffed into a biohazard box.

I went home to listen to Cecil's show. I knew I had overdone it today and I needed some downtime to process all the input I had forced my brain to accept. I smiled as he described the visitor to his studio, relaxing into the sound of his voice as he cooed over his new pet. It didn't last. I dragged myself out of my stupor as he described what happened to Khoshekh. I am not a violent person but I badly wanted to hurt whatever hurt Cecil through his beloved Khoshekh. I took out the card from my pocket. Breathe and wait. Breathe and wait. Breathe. And wait. 

The anger subsided enough that I could choose not to drive to the station to confront Lauren but instead drive to the animal hospital to meet Cecil. He was distraught, pacing the waiting room, asking the vet nurse every few minutes if Khoshekh was going to be okay. He would be different, they said. Cecil could see him, but not take him away. He needed specialist care. There was less of him. There seemed to be less of Cecil too, his enormous personality reduced by this dreadful, deliberate cruelty. The target was not Khoshekh but Cecil must have worked that out. I held him tight, stroked his hair, dried his face with my fingers, reassured him that Khoshekh would live and that of course he would come and live with us while he recovered.

I did not tell Cecil that I wanted him to quit, to let someone else fight this skirmish, stay safe with me. I knew that he was needed, that he needed his role in whatever was going to happen and this physical threat had strengthened his resolve to win, drive them out. I knew that safe was not a term that applied anywhere any more. I had never seen Cecil really angry before and he was glorious in his rage against Strex. I was both relieved and disappointed that he had lacked a suitable weapon at the station.

Intern Jeremy told me more of the story when he came to the animal hospital to check on Cecil. Lauren had made him put the biomachine in Cecil's booth "as a birthday surprise." I thanked him for helping subdue the machine and asked if he could get it, or what was left of it, for me to study. I wanted badly to know how a biomachine operated. If I could figure out the strexpet then perhaps I could figure out Daniel. I speculated to myself, played myself a scene where I reprogrammed Daniel to dispose of Lauren, but Jeremy said, voice slightly raised, that the deactivated strexpet had been taken away. He held my gaze for a few seconds longer than necessary then stuck his hand out for a handshake. I transferred the folded slip of paper he passed to me into my pocket for later. It said two words: _Daniel's booth_

I took Cecil home once Khoshekh was out of surgery and declared stable. He would be kept under for a while to allow him to stay still and heal enough that the wounds would not reopen when he tried to move. Some birthday gift. It occurs to me that I don't know when Cecil's birthday is and I have not told him mine. It has just never come up. I don't even know how old he is, and he has never asked about my age. I love that it doesn't matter to him.


End file.
